COURSE PROFILE

Determining Information Requirements

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COURSE SPECIFICATIONS

Course Code:		C315
Duration:		3 hours
Author:		The Information Architecture Group
Rating:
Pre-requisites:		None
Level		Intermediate Level

Course Summary

This is one in a series of courses that focus on the phases of The Requirements Discovery Process. This course is intended to take the participant through a process of describing and documenting business information or data needs for your project, regardless of the corporate system development methodology, or technical platform implementation. 

For those who are relatively new to data modeling concepts, we have simplified the rules of normalization and business rules that give you a jump-start on your next project. If you are more experienced in data modeling, you will see the ease of obtaining the object definition, relationships, cardinality and modality from your clients which enable you to build a solid conceptual data model, based on true business needs. Additionally, you'll have the context for data usage for each business process. And we'll be applying best practices along the way so that the resulting requirements you specify will conform to industry best practices and standard deliverables.  

Delivery Options

Who Should Attend

Business Analysts, Business Systems Analysts, Systems Analysts, Project Managers, Business Managers

You can use these techniques regardless of the development environment to describe requirements when you are:

• enhancing an existing system
• building a new system in-house,
• purchasing an off-the-shelf package or 
• outsourcing the construction of the system. 

Sample Screen Shot

Learning Objectives

In this course you will learn: 

• what we mean by "information" and why it is important to document it;
• when to define the information;
• who should be involved in the process, and
• how to effectively discover and describe the information.

Features

Video			Flash
Audio			Interactive Components
Exercises			Live Instructor
Quizes			Printable Reference Material
Completion Certificate

Reviews

Straightforward & practical  Jan 1, 2003 
Reviewer: Darrin from City of Chicago

I liked the fact that this was very straightforward - not a lot of theory, do this and do this and you do this because of this and show the relationships of why you do certain things and how they all inter-relate. 

User Friendly - Clear Examples  Jan 1, 2003 
Reviewer: Chad from TNT Logistics

Very user friendly -- a clear, comprehensive course. It walks you through everything with clear examples…not lacking in information & examples. 

No nonsense  Jan 1, 2003 
Reviewer: Lynn from Lab Corp of America

This is a wonderful, no nonsense approach. I like how technical concepts (like normalization and relationship theory) are laid out simply in layman's terms. 

Course Content

Determining Information Requirements 
What does the course cover?
What is an Object? What is a Data Element?
Why do we describe the information?
When do we describe the information?

• The Software Development Life Cycle 
• The Requirements Discovery Process 
• The Elicitation Process 

Who is Involved?

How to Discover and Describe Information Requirements

• The relationship between functionality and data
• The goals when discovering and describing information requirements
• Discovering Objects
• Describing Objects
• Describing Data Elements
• The three steps to follow when you discover a potential data requirement;
• A simple set of business questions to ask users that will easily and quickly define the necessary requirements for a conceptual data or object model

Entity Relationship Diagramming

• What is an Entity Relationship Diagram? 
• The steps to create an Entity Relationship Diagram

Discovering and Describing Information Requirements in different environments

• Maintenance and enhancement projects
• Building a new system
• Purchasing a packaged solution

Building in Quality

• The practical aspects to normalization - Four guidelines to follow
• The five C’s to a quality specification: Complete, Clear, Correct, Consistent, Conforming

Reference Material Available

	A summary video of a live Requirements Discovery Session that brings together all the steps, questions and best practices used to Determine Information Requirements
	A summary of the steps and questions -- that you can print and take away as a quick reference sheet
	A workbook to use when practicing the concepts
	A workbook solution that you can print and take away as a reminder of the steps
	Additional supporting information available as part of the Ask The Expert feature including:
	Types of System Development Life Cycles References to IEEE and SEI-CMM Discovering and Describing Business Activities Discovering Objects from a Project's Scope Data Flow Diagramming Derived Data Foreign Keys Describing Data Elements Representing Objects Describing Data Elements The Logical Data Model Discovering Relationships